The subject matter disclosed herein relates to a system and method of monitoring, managing and controlling the flow of multi-phase electrical power to a facility.
Electrical utilities have a number of metrics that are used to track performance and customer satisfaction. These metrics, which include the system average interruption frequency index (“SAIFI”), the customer average interruption duration index (“CAIDI”), and for some utilities, the momentary average interruption frequency index (“MAIFI”). SAIFI measures the average number of interruptions that a customer would experience during a time period, such as a year. CAIDI measures the duration of the interruption that a customer would experience, and is generally a few hours per year. MAIFI measures the number of power interruptions that have a duration of less than five minutes that a customer would experience during a given time period.
Some or all of these metrics are also used by government regulators to aid in determining if the electrical utility is adhering to the regulations in maintaining a durable and reliable electrical distribution network. As a result, electrical utility and distribution companies have developed system architectures that minimize the duration and frequency of power outages.
It should be appreciated that as a result of these metrics, electrical utilities have incentive to maintain equipment in good operating order and to quickly determine when a condition occurs that is either impacting the distribution of electrical power or has the potential to effect reliability of the electrical network. Often conditions are monitored by utility personnel who visually inspect and perform measurements on electrical equipment and facilities where it is located. In a large metropolitan area, the electrical utility may maintain a large staff of utility personnel that are distributed over a wide geographic area. This staffing of utility personnel represents a large investment for the electrical utility and it may be difficult to cost effectively dispatch the utility personnel with the desired skills and tools in a rapid manner.
One type of outage that may occur is the loss of a single phase to a facility receiving multiple phases of electrical power (e.g. a two-phase or a three-phase service). When an issue arises with a single phase of the multi-phase service, the equipment or appliances supplied by that phase will cease operating.
Accordingly, while existing electrical power delivery systems are suitable for their intended purposes the need for improvement remains, particularly in providing the capability of remotely restoring one or more phases to a facility when a single phase loses electrical power.